There was a moment of tense, dramatic silence.
“I found out,” Quinn said bitterly and turned away.
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth Endicott said, dry-eyed and steady-voiced.
“You should be,” Quinn snapped at her.
“Were you in the room?” I asked Elizabeth Endicott.
“No,” she said quickly but without emphasis.
“That’s a hell of a denial,” Quinn said. “You’re going to be on the stand. Put some feeling into it.”
“No!” she said.
“That’s better,” Quinn said.
I said, “Your alibi depends on a man by the name of Walden who was closing his service station at nine o’clock.”
She said, “It’s a good alibi.”
I said, “The district attorney has a rancher by the name of Thomas Victor who drove past that service station at seven minutes to nine. He wanted to get gasoline. The station was closed.”
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Victor’s watch was wrong.”
Barney said, “Good Lord, Lam! There can’t be anything wrong with that alibi. Walden testified at the inquest, and they really poured it to him. Victor is the one who’s making the mistake.”
I kept looking at Elizabeth Endicott. “She’s playing poker with us,” I said to Quinn.
Quinn whirled back to face her. “Betty, we’re going to trial tomorrow. You can’t afford to lie to us. We’re your friends. We’re the ones who are faced with the responsibility of saving everything you want in life. It you lie to us, you are cutting your own throat. Tell us the truth.”
“I’ve told it to you,” she said.
Quinn turned to me. “What do you think, Donald?”
“I think she’s lying.”
Bertha Cool said, “Donald, you can’t—”
“The hell I can’t,” I interrupted. “Look up Section 258 of the Probate Code, Barney. Read it to her.”
“What section is that?” Barney asked.
“Section 258,” I said.
Elizabeth Endicott looked at me. “Are you a lawyer?” she asked.
“He used to be,” Bertha Cool said. “He’s had a legal education. He’s one smart little bastard. If you’re lying, dearie, you’d better get it off your chest.”
Quinn turned the pages of the Probate Code.
“Got it?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Read it to her,” I said.
Quinn read the section. “ ‘No person convicted of the murder or voluntary manslaughter of the decedent shall be entitled to succeed to any portion of the estate; but the portion thereof to which he would otherwise be entitled to succeed goes to the other persons entitled thereto under the provisions of this chapter.’ ”
Quinn looked at Mrs. Endicott, then he looked at me. His face was pasty. “My God!” he said.
“Go ahead,” I told Elizabeth Endicott, “let’s have the truth.”
Her eyes met mine. “You’re working for me,” she said. “You have no right to say I’m lying.”
“The hell I haven’t! I’m working for you. I’d like to salvage something before it’s too late.”
“I wasn’t in the house when the shot was fired,” she said.
“Where were you?”
“On the road to San Diego.”
“Let’s try it again,” I told her.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you this. I was on the road to San Diego but I can’t prove it. Walden, who ran the service station, was mistaken. He thought he closed up at nine o’clock. He hadn’t wound his watch that day. It stopped about seven o’clock. He tuned in his radio in order to get the time. The program was over at seven-fifteen. He thought it was over at seven-thirty. He set his watch fifteen minutes fast. He didn’t realize it until after he had testified in the inquest. He was absolutely positive his watch was right. He said at the inquest that he had set his watch by the radio less than two hours before he closed. Everyone took it for granted that he had set his watch with a time signal. He hadn’t. He’d set it with a program. He’d made a mistake of fifteen minutes on the program.”
“He found this out?” I asked.
“Yes. He found it out after the inquest. But Bruce Walden has confidence in me. I told him that it wouldn’t make any difference, that I actually was on my way to San Diego and he believed me. So he has never said anything.”
“Where’s Bruce Walden now?” I asked.
“He was running a service station then. Now he’s a gasoline distributor for the entire county.”
Quinn looked at me.
I said, “They have this man Victor. Victor’s positive the station was closed at seven minutes to nine when he drove by.”
Elizabeth Endicott said, “If they should start digging, Mrs. Walden would also testify that her husband was mistaken. He got home at five minutes past nine. He couldn’t have done that if he actually closed the station at nine. She took it for granted he’d closed up early. Nothing was said. It wasn’t until after the inquest that she began to put two and two together. She asked him about setting his watch. He told her how it had happened. She’s the one who pointed out to him that he was fifteen minutes off on the time.”
Quinn looked at me and threw up his hands.
Bertha Cool said, “Fry me for an oyster!”
“All right,” I told Quinn. “We’ll start from here. One of the first things to do is to find that gun before the D. A. finds it. Remember this: the D. A.‘s in a spot. He’s prosecuting John Ansel for first-degree murder. He doesn’t want to back up and dismiss. Even if he could prove Walden closed that station fifteen minutes early he still hasn’t proven Elizabeth Endicott guilty of killing her husband. That’s bothering him right now. That’s raising hell with his thinking.
“We’re going out and find that gun if it’s still there.”
“But don’t you see,” Barney Quinn said, “when Ansel gets on the stand he’s going to have to tell the truth. He can’t lie successfully, and now that I know his story, I can’t put him on and let him tell a lie. He has to tell about that gun.”
I said, “He doesn’t have to get on the stand.”
“If we don’t put him on the stand, we’re licked,” Barney said.
“No,” I told him. “We’ll let the district attorney play into our hands.”
“How?”
“We’ll give him a witness.”
“Who?”
“Helen Manning.”
“Who’s she?”
“She is a discharged secretary who came to Elizabeth Endicott and told her what a heel her husband was. She’s the woman who told Elizabeth for the first time that Karl had deliberately sent John to his death. She’s the woman who made Elizabeth Endicott think about killing her husband. She’s the woman who first put the idea into Elizabeth’s head.”
Elizabeth Endicott sat perfectly still, her face an absolute mask. “What are you trying to do?” she asked. “Send me to the gas chamber?”
“We’re trying to get the district attorney straddling a barbed-wire fence,” I said, “one foot on one side, one foot on the other.”
“You can’t do it with that guy. He’s smart,” Quinn warned.
“All right,” I said, “what are you going to do with him?”
Quinn didn’t have the answer to that one.
I turned to Elizabeth Endicott. “There’s only one thing for us to do. We don’t dare use flashlights. We can’t make the search by daylight or someone would tip the police off. Cooper Hale owns the property next to your estate so we’ll have to wait until well after midnight. We’ll go out to your house. We’ll ease out of the side door. Then we’ve got to get down on our hands and knees and search every inch of that hedge by feeling.”